Air Borne Dance Theater

An Unlikely Dancer’s Story

Growing up with a disability

I have been passionate about dance since I was a little girl. I had—and have—an extra sensitivity to the joy of movement, because the ability to move was snatched from me very early in life, when I contracted polio just after I learned how to walk. My left leg was permanently weakened by the disease—most of the muscles on my left side from the hip down no longer worked. After my recovery, I could walk with a limp, but I could not run or jump anymore.

Because I’d had to re-learn how to walk, I had excellent balance and timing and a musical ear. I signed up for ballet classes. During a recital, I danced proudly to a tarantella melody in a red-sequined tutu; “You have a great sense of rhythm,” a friend of my mother’s told me afterward.

It was particularly important to me that I could dance in ballet classes every week, and that the other children in the dance classes did not make fun of me, because in school my asymmetrical gait and body were often targets for my peers.

Flash back to 2nd Grade: a blue-gray hallway in Munsey Park Elementary School. I walk down the long hallway toward the library.

“Comin’ Mr. Dillon, I’m a comin’!” says Billy, 10 feet ahead of me. He moves with an exaggerated limp, stepping hard on his right foot and dragging his left like it was made of lead. I cringe, avert my eyes, and hurry past him, hunched over my books as he again taunts, “Comin’ Mr. Dillon!”

I’m a cripple who can’t walk right.

4th Grade, gym class: We’re going to play volleyball. The teacher asks two “popular” girls to be team captains, and they take turns choosing teammates. Soon, everyone in the class has been chosen, except me. It’s Linda’s turn. She glares at me as she says my nickname “Neil.” We start playing. The first time the ball comes toward me, I can’t move fast enough and I miss it or drop it. The next time it comes at me, I almost miss it, then manage to tap it to another teammate who bats it over the net. Linda turns to another teammate and says, “She scares me, that girl.”

I’m a failure at team sports.

4th Grade, recess time: I stand at the top of the steps down to the long, oval playground. Clumps of children are at play. I sigh and go down the stairs. I move from group to group. Can I play with you: I ask the group at the hopscotch patch. No, we’ve already started, and you need to be able to jump far. Can I play with you? No, you got to run fast to play with us. Can I play with you? No, we’re not playing a regular game; we’re forming a club.

I don’t fit in because I’m different. Being different is bad.

Of course, I wanted to be “normal”, to be accepted and included. I resented the fact that I couldn’t run, that I limped, that I had to wear special shoes, that that my left leg was skinny and I thought, ugly. That nobody invited me to their parties. I didn’t want to be me, most of the time, and I tried to disown my left leg.

So it was with particular pride, excitement and joyful anticipation that, after three years of ballet classes, I pulled on pink toe shoes and went to my first toe class when I was 11 or 12 years old.

We were in two rows in the narrow room, girls in pink tights and toe shoes. The floor was old, dark hardwood. The teacher was unsmiling. We stood at the barre doing warm-ups in first position, second position, and fourth position. Then we got up onto our toes. I tried mightily to get up on point on my left leg, but I could not. I continued doing the barre exercises as best I could, using my right leg, my “strong” leg, as much as possible.

And then the class ended. Did the teacher talk to me directly? Or to my mother who was standing near me at the door? The teacher was tall and looking down, and the light behind her, coming from the large windows along one wall, made her face go dark and her hair catch fire. Or maybe my heart went dark, a light went out inside me, when I heard, “She can’t get up on point on her left leg. She shouldn’t come back to class.”

It was like a death sentence. Banned from the art I loved, from the music, the movement, the feel of rhythms in my body, the feeling of being a part of a group, of being accepted by my peers. The message was clear: “I am a cripple; therefore I cannot be a dancer.”

Flash forward to my senior year in high school: I’m at the Metropolitan Opera House in NY, with my sister, at that time an aspiring professional ballerina, and her friend. We’re watching Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn of the Royal Ballet. During intermission, my sister’s friend says, “Are you a dancer too?” No, I say. “Well, you look like a dancer.” That’s crazy, she must not see my left leg. I don’t look anything like those dancers on stage, I think.

In college, I was a theater major, but didn’t feel I could fit in with fully able-bodied actors, and there were no roles for people with a limp. I dropped out of college for a time. Then, I discovered a love of studio art, and finally, I felt at home: I returned to college as an art major, and, with skilled teachers, I excelled in painting and sculpture.

After college came marriage, motherhood, and then divorce with a small child to support. I gave up art for a more practical career in instructional design and educational media. I found myself drawn to photography. I made a career as a photojournalist, and then as an architectural photographer, until I developed Post Polio Syndrome, a condition of declining stamina and strength, and had to find more sedentary work. An ironic turn of events.

I became an editor, and was pursuing creative writing on the side, but it wasn’t the right art form. I went back to painting, for a while, but that didn’t feel quite right anymore, either.

My call to dance

In the late 1990s, I could no longer ignore a persistent desire to perform. I took acting and theater improvisation classes, joined a local theater improvisation troupe, and then formed my own theater improv troupe.

I had never heard of wheelchair dancing until I saw a flyer advertising auditions for a play called “Wheelchair Dancer” in January 1998. I felt my heart speed up as I read the play’s description, “about a wheelchair dancer who joins a professional dance troupe.” I decided on the spot to audition. The lead role was already filled, but I was offered a role as understudy. Although I turned down this role, I saw the play. I was moved to tears when the wheelchair-using actor danced in a beautiful composition with non-disabled dancers.

This inspiring play powerfully influenced my perspective on disability and wheelchairs: I saw that a wheelchair could increase my mobility, rather than limit it. And, further, that a person with a disability could dance beautifully on stage.

At that point in my life, though I could dance on my feet, I tired quickly. And the amount of time I could dance on my feet without tiring had steadily declined, due to Post Polio Syndrome. I could not dance for long without sitting down. Yet, here was a way to sit down and continue dancing.

Still, although I enjoyed dancing informally, the world of dance as an art form seemed inaccessible. In 1999, I told my closest friends, “I want to be a storyteller! My passion is performing and telling stories!”

This led me to an InterPlay performance art workshop in the spring of 1999. I had fun learning InterPlay’s simple, yet deeply satisfying storytelling and movement improvisation techniques. When one of the workshop leaders asked if two people would dance while she read a poem, something in me tingled. I stepped into the performance space and found myself facing a lithe blond woman named Judith. I instinctively followed and built upon her movements and the images from the poem. My body seemed to know what to do. At one point I was upside down in a handstand with Judith supporting me.

Afterwards people said to me, that was a wonderful dance! You looked beautiful. You have danced before, haven’t you? I sensed something magical had happened; the playful movement exercises of the workshop had somehow shaken me loose of self consciousness, letting what was inside me emerge.

I attended more InterPlay workshops, and at first, I focused on personal storytelling, never thinking of myself as a dancer. I was a cripple. How could a cripple be a dancer? Yet, through InterPlay techniques, which are incremental, affirming and playful, I slowly gained more confidence in my skill as a dancer. In contact improvisation exercises, for instance, by beginning with simple hand contact dances and then moving into whole body contact, I discovered dance as body conversations. I gained a heightened physical sensitivity and uncovered hidden talents for co-creating lifts and shapes.

In the spring of 2000, I gave two informal solo performances that combined movement and storytelling. I did not think of these as dance performances, I was just moving in between chunks of storytelling. But people said my movements were so graceful and interesting that they wanted to see more. So, ta, da! I had performed as a solo dancer without intending to.

It was a revelation for me to discover that people liked my “different” body and movements in performance. It was also a revelation to notice how I felt when I danced for an audience. It energized me in a way nothing else had. My ability to connect with and communicate to an audience through dance began to transform my relationship to my body. I was beginning to hear and heed the wisdom of my heart.

I wanted to dance more. That summer, I signed up for the InterPlay leadership program and headed to California for two back-to-back intensive workshops led by InterPlay co-founders Phil Porter and Cynthia Winton-Henry. But how would I do these active, five-day seminars without wearing myself out? At the time, I owned a power scooter that I used to conserve energy while shopping and doing other chores, but it was too unwieldy for expressive movement exercises. Recalling the play, “Wheelchair Dancer,” I started shopping for a lightweight, manual wheelchair.

When I arrived at the retreat farm in Northern California in August 2000, I pushed the wheelchair to the side of the room and rarely used it during the first session. But I needed to sit down or risk wearing myself out. When I did, other participants didn’t look down upon or talk condescendingly to me, a response I dreaded. In fact, one of the participants asked, “Is that your chair? Cool!” It was cool; it was very lightweight, and had removable armrests.

The second morning, which was devoted to dance, I began to dance in the chair. Cynthia paired me with Kylie, an experienced dancer. Kylie and I experimented with different ways of sharing our weight and supporting each other. Then we performed a contact improvisation duet for the rest of the group.

I felt awkward because I wasn’t sure how to maneuver the wheelchair, and the steel and plastic creation felt foreign. Yet Kylie treated the chair like it was just another part of my body. She leaned on it and on me. She pulled on the chair, tipping it backwards and sideways; I leaned and pulled on her. We rolled across the room together as I lifted her. Afterwards, person after person said to me, “That was so beautiful, those lifts were especially graceful. You are a graceful dancer. You move gracefully.”

I was elated. “People appreciate me as a dancer, and they appreciate me as a dancer in a wheelchair!” I thought. New possibilities for dance exploded around me.

I began to feel sparks between the chair and me. Though part of me resented my need for the chair, I loved the gift of new movement it gave me. I sailed across the room during a dance improvisation in a way I could not have done on my feet. It reminded me of the synchronized swimming I had done as a child, freed temporarily from the chains of gravity that slowed me on the ground.

Then we paired off to perform solo dances for a witness. As I began dancing in the wheelchair, I felt a deep well of energy rising through me urgently, like a kid bursting through the kitchen door into her house wanting to tell her mother about her day. I danced the grief of not having enough stamina or strength to dance the way I saw others dance; I danced a story that could not be told except through movement. I pushed the chair away and danced on my knees, using my whole upper body. Intense joy and passion erupted from deep inside, setting my torso and limbs moving powerfully without my trying to. I felt joy of movement, joy of performing, joy of being affirmed and appreciated. Passion was dancing itself through me. There were no other thoughts, no inner critic, no split in my being. I was the dance.

Afterwards, Phil stood up and said to the group, “In InterPlay, we honor the contribution of all bodies. At the same time we recognize that there are some who are clearly called to be dancers or storytellers in the community. And we want to encourage them, because the community is enriched by their gifts.”

In my gut, I felt called to be a dancer and performer, and this both scared and thrilled me.

Joining the Dancing Wheels

Responding to this inner call, I attended an advanced InterPlay performance class led by Ginny Going and Tom Henderson in the fall of 2000. The class culminated in a performance in October with Off the Deep End Ensemble, an improvisational performance troupe. It was my first public performance as a wheelchair dancer. Audience members told me that my gracefulness and the way I lit up as I danced moved them to tears.

As fate would have it, I was laid off from my state job around the same time as my public debut as a wheelchair dancer. I knew this was a watershed moment for me. I began contacting wheelchair dance companies around the country, seeking opportunities for further training.

The Dancing Wheels of Cleveland invited me to spend a week in February 2001 training with them. At the end of that week, they offered me an apprenticeship, with the possibility of joining the company as a paid, full-time wheelchair dancer after a few months.

In May 2001 I moved to Cleveland to dance fulltime with the company. It was excellent training. For nine months I danced with this company five or more hours a day, five or six days a week. I studied classical modern technique in daily technique classes. I learned demanding choreography and wheelchair technique and performed in numerous shows. I gained insights into the choreographic process, and I extended my movement vocabulary. I learned how far I could push my body. Surprisingly, my body got stronger, a minor medical miracle. My stamina increased, rather than decreased, as is usually the case with Post Polio Syndrome. I believe it is the magic of passion: doing what lights me up and brings me joy is good for me.

A trail of open doors

After nine months, I left the Dancing Wheels to pursue the next steps in my dance career.

Doors that had previously been closed to me, the doors to the world of dance, started to open. I followed a trail of open doors, populated by people who were saying, “Yes!”. I focused on what brought me energy, rather than on what disappointed me or what I couldn’t do. I embraced, rather than disowned, my disability, turning “dis-ability” into possibility.

I am deeply grateful to the many people who have helped me along this path; among them are teachers and coaches and dance studio owners. I want to thank them and acknowledge their contributions here. They include:

Mary Verdi Fletcher, Sabatino Verlezza and Barbara Verlezza of the Dancing Wheels, for the opportunity to dance and train with them.

NC InterPlay leaders Tom Henderson and Ginny Going who encouraged me in my first, tentative steps back into the world of dance.

My first mentors and dance coaches after leaving the Dancing Wheels: Cynthia Winton-Henry, Joy Javits and Anne Deloria, who gave generously of their time and expertise in helping me to develop my technique.

My excellent dance teachers David Beadle and Michelle Pearson.

My dance coach and mentor Rebecca Amis Lawson, who has taught me more than I can ever thank her for.

Carol Richard, co-founder of the Chapel Hill Ballet School, for the generous donation of rehearsal space and a studio where I could feel at home.

Balanced-Movement Studios, for their generous donation of rehearsal space.

The foundations and organizations who have supported my work and encouraged to keep going: the Durham Arts Council, the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, the Kenan Foundation, and the Orange County Arts Commission.

The ArtsCenter, for the donation of rehearsal space for Air Borne’s debut concert.